Tag Archives: aapi

Don Wakamatsu makes history as first Asian American Major League Baseball coach

By | | ,
3 Comments

Don Wakamatsu, a yonsei, is the first Asian American manager in Major League Baseball.

A New York Times profile of Don Wakamatsu (thanks to reader Juan Lozano for pointing it out), the Japanese American named by the Seattle Mariners to manage the struggling team, reminded me that I’d been meaning to write about him since Wakamatsu’s hiring was announced in November.

It’s an historic signing because for the hype that Japanese (and other Asian) ball players have received from the media since Hideo Nomo arrived as a pitcher for the Dodgers in 1995, there have been few and mostly unheralded Japanese American players in MLB. (By the way, Nomo wasn’t the first Japanese player — Masanori Murakami pitched in 1964 and ’65 for the San Francisco Giants.) And, there has never been an Asian American manager of a Major League team.

It’s nice to read stories about Wakamatsu, who acknowledges his role as a pioneering Asian American. He grew up with an awareness of his heritage — his father is Sansei and his mother is Irish American, so he’s a Yonsei, or fourth-generation, Hapa. He played in Japanese American sports leagues as a kid, and is a member of the Japanese American Citizens League.

His grandparents were interned at Tule Lake during World War II, and his father was born in camp. His grandparents even bought pieces of their former barracks and used them to build their home in Hood River, Oregon after the war, and they still live in the house.

Wakamatsu was born in Oregon but raised in the Bay Area suburb of Hayward. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in 1985 as a catcher, and also played for the Chicago White Sox. He’s held various coaching positions for the Texas Rangers, Anaheim Angels, Arizona Diamondbacks and others. He was bench coach for the Oakland As last season when he was picked to helm the Mariners.
Continue reading →

Asian Americans aren’t all members of one political party

By | |
Leave a comment

Ahn Joseph Cao is the new Congressman from LouisianaThe national organization APIA Vote made it abundantly clear during both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention, where they did a lot of recruiting and convened caucuses: Asian American Pacific Islanders are not involved enough in politics.

We’re not great at getting the vote out, we don’t participate as much as we could at the grassroots local level, and not enough Asian Americans run for and serve in elected office. A lot of that is cultural — many of us are raised with the admonition: Don’t bring attention to yourself. Don’t make waves. The nail that sticks out gets nailed down (a particularly vivid Japanese saying that my mom has used on me).

This logic steers us away from public career fields such as news media (oops, sorry, screwed that one up, mom) and politics. Given the range of offices and opportunities, relatively few AAPI politicians have national profiles.

They include former Congressman and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, Former washington Governor Gary Locke, Congressman Mike Honda of California, current Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, Illinois Veterans Affiars Director Tammy Duckworth, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawai’i, Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawai’i… OK, Hawai’i skews the curve.

Indian American Bobby Jindal is the governor of LouisianaBut Louisiana, which is probably not on most peoples’ list of Asian-rich states, now boasts two AAPIs in nationally notable positions: Bobby Jindal (left) is the country’s first-ever Indian American Governor, and as of last weekend, Ahn Joseph Cao (above right) is the country’s first Vietnamese American Congressman.

The kicker: both are Republicans, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone but still has some people pondering the preponderance of party affiliations among the Asian American community.

Jindal, for one, was one of John McCain’s possible choices for running mate, and he’s been touted as a possible presidential candidate for 2012, given his moderate social agenda and conservative fiscal outlook. Cao fled Vietnam during the Saigon with his mother (his father was imprisoned by the Viet Cong for seven years) with the wave of “boat people” refugees, and managed to defeat an incumbent Democrat in a Democratic stronghold district.
Continue reading →

Obama names retired General Eric Shinseki as Veterans Affairs Secretary

By | |
1 Comment

Retired Army General Eric Shinseki was named by Obama to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Back on Veterans Day I posted an article about how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been heroes for generations in the U.S. military, and ended the article with a note about retired Four-Star Gen. Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff and the highest-ranked AAPI in the military.

Today, NBC released an excerpt of an interview with Barack Obama to air on tomorrow’s “Meet the Press” program, during which the President-elect tells Tom Brokaw that he’s naming Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

The timing of the announcement isn’t coincidental.

Tomorrow is Sunday, December 7, the 67th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Shinseki is Japanese American, and he was born in Hawai’i on November, 28, 1942. He and Barack Obama both have childhood roots in Hawai’i. Shinseki is a Vietnam veteran, who lost part of a foot from stepping on a land mine. He was named Army Chief of Staff in 1999 and retired in 2003… many thought, under duress from the Bush administration for his views which contradicted the official one on the war against Iraq.

On February 25, 2003, a few months before the end of his appointment and the start of his retirement, Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought an occupying force of several hundred thousand men would be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq. His analysis was bluntly dismissed by the Bush administration. Here’s part of a transcript of the proceedings:
Continue reading →

A Japanese American Judge for Denver: Mayor Hickenlooper and Kerry Hada’s swearing-in

By | |
1 Comment

Japanese Consul General Kazuaki Kubo, Denver District Court Judge Kerry Hada and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Consul General of Japan in Colorado, Kazuaki Kubo, left, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, right, congratulate Judge Kerry Hada on his appointment at a ceremony on Dec. 3.

When Denver County Court Judge Melvin Okamoto announced earlier this year that he was retiring after two decades on the bench, the legal community offered up a handful of qualified candidates to take Okamoto’s place. Of those, three top candidates were interviewed by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, and Colorado native Kerry Hada, an attorney who went to Wheat Ridge High School, served as an Army Ranger in the last years of the Vietnam War, ranked nationally as a skier while attending CU, and got his law degree from DU, was chosen for the position.

Hada deserves the honor, because he’s a mainstay of the legal community and the Asian American Pacific Islander community. That community support was obvious last night.

As Hickenlooper looked out over the hundreds of people gathered in the lobby of the city’s Wellington Webb building last night, he remarked that he’d never seen such a huge crowd for the swearing-in of any official appointment since he became mayor. He joked that everyone in the room probably sent at least two letters to his office recommending Hada; Kerry himself noted that he would not have received the nod this time (he’s tried for a couple of judgeships before, including one a couple of years ago with Hickenlooper) without the support from the community.

People from every segment of Kerry’s life and work, including friends, family, military friends, folks from the local legal community and many representatives of the local Japanese American and Asian American communities were there to congratulate him. The Consul General of Japan, Kazuaki Kubo, and his wife also both attended.

Hizzoner and Kerry both gave props to Okamoto, himself a damned nice guy, who waved happily from the side of the room. It’s purely coincidental that the Mayor chose a JA to replace another JA, but I’m glad — and proud — that he did.

Meiko and the new ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ folk music: dreamy and world-weary

By | | ,
3 Comments

Meiko, a one-quarter Japanese American, or “quapa,” from Georgia by way of Los Angeles, is at the vanguard of the new folk music. At least, that’s the category where you’ll find her on iTunes. She strums and picks an acoustic guitar, so she fits the folksinger/troubadour image.

But her music isn’t based on the traditional “folk” music of the 1960s folk boom. Meiko’s the latest in a long line of singer-songwriters who came out of that earlier folk boom. Starting with the likes of Bob Dylan, and peers and disciples from Tom Rush and Eric Andersen to Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne, singer-songwriters have skirted the edges of the rock-pop mainstream, playing their own music instead of traditional songs, with acoustic instruments as their foundation.

Their subject matter is mostly introspective and personal (hence, anti-pop by design) but when it clicks commercially, singer-songwriter music, like alternative rock, can hit the sweet spot and rise up the pop charts.

It’s a style of music that in recent years has become quieter and quieter, almost a whisper instead of the declamatory protest music of, say, early Phil Ochs, or Peter, Paul and Mary, in the ’60s, or the folk and country-rock of the ’70s. The new folk music can be mopey (then again, weren’t Jackson Browne’s songs mopey too?).

And, it’s become a signature style of television soundtracks. Although many shows now, from “Bones” to the “CSI” franchise, feature this type of music, I think of “Gray’s Anatomy” first and foremost when I hear the new folk. The genre fits perfectly with the introspective spoken narration that closes each episode of “Gray’s.”

“Boys with Girlfriends,” one of the best songs from Meiko’s first full-length recording, “Meiko,” was featured on “Gray’s Anatomy on November 20. Once you know the song, you’ll chuckle at how perfect it is for the romantic tensions that are at the heart of the series: “I know better not to be friends with boys with girlfriends,” Meiko sings.

Boys With Girlfriends – Music Video

Meiko has a handful of equally terrific songs, the kind that get in your head and bounce around like a superball, keeping you humming for days. She’s perfected the new folk sound, a dreamy, world-weary singing style that’s colored with just a hint of a husky rasp. But it’s her way of fitting words and phrases into cadences that stretch and contract to conform to her lilting sense of melody that stay with you.
Continue reading →